David, Are you using StaffPad alone or more as a front end for Fin/Sib?
Also, would the new custom time sig feature permit free sketching without having to commit to a time sig? (Presumably large-valued time-sig like 10/2 or something). Robert On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 8:26 AM, David H. Bailey <[email protected]> wrote: > Please excuse the cross posting and apologies to those who will receive > this update to my previous StaffPad review multiple times. > > I know that for users of Sibelius and Finale, regular updates of the > software are very important and in recent years have been less than > overwhelming as corporate politics and financial problems have gotten in > the way of offering real improvements to the software. > > I am posting this because I want everybody to know that is *not* the > case for the developers of StaffPad, who are working hard to improve > their product. They have been very responsive to suggestions and > questions from users around the world, and I have been very impressed > with the speed of their replies to my inquiries and their concerns about > complaints and suggestions I made concerning the initial release of > StaffPad. > > StaffPad has been on the market for just over 4 weeks and already David > and Matt, the two designers and principal programmers of StaffPad, have > just released a very major update to the software. > > I will mention some of the major details later on in this message but > for those who want more detailed information here are two important links: > <http://blog.staffpad.net/> > <http://www.staffpad.net/data/StaffPad_Changelog_1_1_1_2.pdf> > > Here is a video of David Hearn using StaffPad on a SurfacePro3 at the > keynote presentation for Microsoft Build 2015: > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkvk6V9lMyE&feature=youtu.be> > > Some of the major improvements in this update: > 1) the ability to reorder the staves in the score -- in the initial > release the instruments were placed in the score in traditional > orchestral order, so that, for example, the horn would be placed as the > top staff even in a brass quintet, where it is traditionally the middle > staff, right after the trumpets. Now there are the same Move Up and > Move Down possibilities in staff placement as there are in Sibelius and > Finale. The score can be set up initially in the preferred order, or if > a change is desired once a score has been started, that can be done as > well. > 2) custom time signatures -- initially users had to choose from a > relatively small number of predefined time signatures but now if the > user scrolls to the right end of the list of predefined time signatures > there is an icon to tap which has dots only on it and that allows the > user to enter any number for the denominator and then choose the desired > note value. They haven't gone so far as to allow non-traditional > numbers on the bottom of the time signatures such as 3 or 6 -- there > have been numerous discussions on various notation lists as to whether > or not most musicians would know how to interpret those. The top number > can't be a fraction so meters such as 2.5/4 would have to be written in > the more traditional 5/8. But at least the possibilities have been > increased far beyond the initial release. > 3) printing of parts has improved in several ways -- multi-rests are now > possible and are user selectable (either on or off for the entire part) > and the printing of parts which use the same instrument has been > improved as well. In the initial release all staves which used the same > instrument were printed together on a part -- with this update the user > can select whether to print each such staff separately or together. For > example in a brass quintet if the two trumpet staves had the instrument > "trumpets" they would have both printed on the same pages when the parts > were printed. Now they can be selected individually and will print > separately. > 4) playback of indicated tempos is much more accurate. > > There are many more small updates and behind-the-scenes fixes and > improvements, all of which are outlined in the changelog for which I > posted a link earlier in this message. > > This update is a huge leap forward for StaffPad, moving it a long way > forward on its journey to being a major player in the computer-notation > world. It has become an important tool in my composition toolbox! > > It is still basically a Microsoft Surface product, but there have been > reports of people using it with other computers as long as they have a > touch sensitive input device of some sort, including running under > Parallels on a Mac. I have no idea how successful or enjoyable using > StaffPad on such devices is, but I can say that using StaffPad on my > Microsoft SurfacePro3 is a very enjoyable experience! > > -- > David H. Bailey > [email protected] > http://www.davidbaileymusicstudio.com > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > > To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: > [email protected] > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: [email protected]
